differing expectations in the

EAP classroom
Dilys Thorp

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This paper discusses the idea of culturally-specific norms of interaction and
argues that where there is a mismatch between students' expectations and
those of the staff, the students are likely to be judged negatively. Fred Erick-
son's ethnographic research on problems of cross-cultural interaction in
school classrooms is considered with relevance to the 'invisible culture' of
higher education. The paper then discusses particular examples of such
problems drawn from students on Access and EAP courses and suggests
some possible solutions. It is argued that staff need to become aware of
their own cultural norms and then accommodate to the interactional styles
of the learners. At the same time, they should be explicit about the interac-
tional demands of their classes.'

introduction In this paper, I shall be considering problems between staff and students
which arise out of culturally different norms of interaction, and which
can, and often do, lead to a negative picture being built up of the students.
I first of all consider the work of the ethnographer Fred Erickson (1982),
who has looked at what he terms the 'participation structures' of the
primary school classroom. He has shown how culturally specific patterns
of interaction affect access to learning and how interactional difficulties
lead to negative assessments being made. The primary school classroom
may seem a far cry from EAP, but I believe Erickson's ideas have rel-
evance to the higher education context and provide us with an interesting
and promising area of work. After discussing these ideas, I go on to look
at some instances from my own experience of 'confused encounters'
where there has been a mismatch between the expectations of students
and of staff; I suggest some possible ways of helping students become
socioculturally competent where necessary, and ways of using such prob-
lems to heighten staff and student awareness of themselves as cultural
beings.

'Participant The term 'participant structures' wasfirstproposed by the ethnographer

structures' Susan Philips in 1972 to'illustrate differences in classroom participation
between American Indian and non-Indian children in the Warm Springs
Reservation in North America. The term was changed to 'participation
structures' by Erickson (1982) to capture the more dynamic nature of
interaction, and defined by Cazden (1985: 19) as 'the rights and obli-
gations of participants with respect to who can say what, when and to
whom.'
108 ELT Journal Volume 45/2 April 1991 © Oxford University Press 1991
 By comparing the participant structures, Philips (1972) was able to
explain the Indian pupils' silence and non-participation in traditional
classroom lessons. She argued that Indian children were unable to parti-
cipate verbally in classroom interaction because the social conditions for
participation which pertained in their community were not present in the
classroom. In her comparison, she found that the Indian children were
relatively less willing to participate verbally when they had to speak alone
in front of the other students. They were also relatively less eager to speak
when the moment at which they were supposed to do so was dictated by
the teacher (as it is during sessions when the teacher is working with the
whole class or a small group), but they were more willing to take part in
group activities which do not create a distinction between individual per-

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former and audience. They were especially good at autonomous group
activities where control of turn-taking lay in their own hands.

Effects of Philips argues that when there are any interactional difficulties between
interactional pupils and teachers as they engage in academic learning tasks, it generally
difficulties leads to negative judgements and negative assessments of the pupils. If
pupils are not conforming to the interactional norms of the classroom,
then they cannot be assimilated into the framework within which the
teacher operates; because of the teacher's authority, it is the pupils who
are defined as not understanding. Any interactional conflict is probably
not overtly mentioned, but a judgement is made. When a teacher
describes the situation, it is in terms of a personal evaluation of the pupil's
behaviour; for example, 'he or she is always interrupting/talking out of
turn/asking questions/shy/not answering questions. Isolated clashes of
patterns of interaction can build into chains which bind pupils onto
tracks: stereotypes are formed and negative judgements are made.
One can see this happening too in the academic situation, where a student
may inadvertently create an unfavourable impression by what is seen by
the teacher as culturally inappropriate behaviour. For example, in one
institution, I heard staff talking of certain groups as 'unresponsive' and of
others as 'rowdy', or 'inclined to cheat'.
The main reason for such interactional problems in the classroom, Shultz,
Florio, and Erickson (1982) argue, is lack of knowledge by children and
teacher of each other's culturally learned expectations for appropriate
social behaviour. There is a mismatch. I would suggest that the same can
apply in the academic context of higher education. There are tacit social
and cultural rules and routines which are culturally very specific and
which can cause problems for overseas students, as well as for native
speakers.

'Invisible culture' Philips (1983) calls these rules the 'invisible culture' of the classroom.
of classrooms This is a concept in which judgement is crucial. We all operate learnt pat-
terns of judgement and have standards for perceiving, believing, acting,
and evaluating which are culturally specific. Judgement is crucial because
in interaction we are always judging, and other people frequently operate
with culturally different standards. In the classroom, children are judged
Confused encounters in the EAP classroom 109
 through how they are learning or not learning, and whether they are
'good' or 'bad' pupils. The same applies in colleges and universities,
where students are judged as to whether they are, or are not, paying
attention in lectures, are responsive, and so on. Judgements are made
about the way students do or do not ask questions in lectures, talk to each
other in lectures, participate in seminars and tutorials, respond to praise
or criticism. For these things, there are culturally specific norms which I
shall look at in more detail below.
The invisible culture of the classroom, then, includes all the tacit rules for
interaction which somehow have to be learnt. Leo van Lier (1988),who
has applied Erickson's work to the foreign language classroom, writes

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that the classroom (and we might substitute lecture or seminar)

establishes its own rules and constraints, to some extent different in

each and every classroom, but conforming to certain basic rules and
norms of human conduct, partly of a very general nature, partly
specific to a setting in which the pedagogic purpose predominates.
(1988: 179)

This is similar to Levinson's (1979) notion of the activity type. I suggest

that it is useful for us to consider the invisible culture of higher education,
and that as E AP teachers we need to think about the norms of interaction
in lectures and seminars, and reflect on the 'rules' of our own classrooms
and how we can best prepare our students to operate effectively in the
various academic situations in which they find themselves. We can also try
to raise the consciousness of academic staff.

Two sets of Erickson (1982) argues that any learning task requires two sets of know-
knowledge ledge: the Academic Task Structure (ATS), and the Social Participation
Structure (SPS). The ATS is to do with the subject matter, while the SPS
involves knowledge of what social conventions are necessary to learn to
do the subject; for example, the question of where on the page something
should be written, whether one's neighbour, or the teacher, can be asked
for help, whether the task is learning or a test. In the school classroom, a
child needs to get both right.
Erickson made detailed observations of classrooms and also of the homes
and communities of children from those classrooms (Erickson 1982;
Shultz, Florio, and Erickson 1982). He showed that interactional prob-
lems occurred where there was cultural incongruity between home and
school. For example, an Anglo-American teacher in an Italian-American
classroom complained about children 'chiming in' as secondary speaker
listeners while the dialogue was going on between the two main speaker
listeners. But studies of dinner-table conversations in the home, where all
the family were gathered round, showed that there 'chiming in' was con-
sidered appropriate. In fact, it seemed almost impossible to be con-
sidered as interrupting: simultaneous talk did not count as interruption
and there were multiple speakers and multiple audiences. Children
110 Dilys Thorp
 transferred the participation structure from their home to the classroom,
and found difficulty in knowing what was expected of them in the
classroom.
Adelman (1981) has shown, from detailed conversations between the
researcher and pupils in native-language classrooms in Britain, that the
pupils often did not really know what they were meant to be doing, nor
how they were supposed to respond to the teacher's questions. If this is
the case with native-language classrooms, then it is possible that such
problems occur even more frequently in university settings, and particu-
larly among non-native students.

The academic I should like to turn now to the 'invisible culture' of the academic context

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context and consider, first of all, lectures. Participation in lectures involves know-
Lectures ing not only how to listen and take notes (ATS), but also how to show that
one is listening. This varies culturally. A check-list, such as that shown in
Figure 1, can be used with groups of teachers to provoke discussion on
this issue.

Figure 1: Check-list: Are your students attending?

A check-list used as Please tick J
prompt discussion If
material they give you eye contact? •
they are looking out of the window? Q
they are talking to each other? Q
they are looking towards you but avoiding eye contact? •
they are looking at the floor? •
they are writing? •
they nod, raise their eyebrows, look puzzled? •
they are muttering to themselves? •
they are sitting still? •
they are moving around the room? •
Other (please specify) •

Participation in lectures also involves knowing when one may interrupt

the lecture with a question for clarification or point of additional in-
formation. Carol Archer (1986) gives the example of a lecturer who was
annoyed at a student talking to another student in the room whilst she was
lecturing. On being asked about this, the student replied that she had not
understood, did not want to be impolite by interrupting the lecturer, so
asked a friend instead. The lecturer would have preferred the student to
have asked her. In the same way, academic staff at my own college have
often been heard to complain about certain national groups talking to
each other through lectures and not paying attention.

Asking questions in This matter of asking questions in lectures is something of concern to

lectures some Chinese and Indonesian postgraduate students in my own depart-
ment. These students have no language problem as such: one would
expect difficulties to be compounded where there are also language diffi-
culties. They tell me they are not used to asking questions, as, they say,
they are taught as children never to interrupt adults in conversation. This
Confused encounters in the EAP classroom 111
 attitude remains with them and is carried over in their perceived role vis a
vis the teacher, even when, as is the case in some of their lectures, they are
older than the lecturer. Chinese students have told me that they see ask-
ing questions as face threatening, because it implies that the teacher has
explained things poorly. Clearly, this reflects a very different view of the
teacher's role. What the Indonesian students see happening in lectures is
that native-speaker students commonly interrupt the lecturer with a ques-
tion or comment, but they are at a loss as to how to do this themselves.2
And then I hear comments from staff such as, 'his work shows he's very
bright, but he's quiet in class.' Such a judgement might well be made of a
native-speaking British student, in which case the chances are that the
student would be of a quiet and shy disposition. In the case of the Indo-

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nesian, however, it is not necessarily a question of personality.

Other 'difficulties' Whereas the Indonesian postgraduates find themselves unable to inter-
rupt and ask questions, for others the difficulties take a different form.
Some interrupt and are always, in the eyes of the lecturer, too anecdotal.
An example from my own days as an MA student illustrates this. An East
European student used to precede what was usually a very valid point
with an anecdote, but by the time the point was reached the listeners had
switched off. In other cases, the relevance of the contribution or question
itself seems dubious to the lecturer. Both these difficulties reflect the fact
that there are cultural norms about how to make one's contribution rel-
evant. Other students appear to be too argumentative with their ques-
tions or comments; others expect to be able to have some 'private time'
with the lecturer after class, which can lead to annoyance on both sides if
the lecturer has to rush off afterwards.
Other interactional problems in lectures may arise through different cul-
tural expectations about lateness or leaving a class early. Indonesian and
Chinese students are brought up always to explain to a lecturer why they
are late and apologize before sitting down. This, of course, is not the
norm in higher education in this country, where the lecturer would be
likely to view such behaviour as an annoying interruption. Similarly if a
student has to leave a lecture a little early, the norm here would be to sit
near the door and slip out unobtrusively. This is considered impolite by
my Indonesian students, who on one occasion at the beginning of the year
interrupted my lecture with a lengthy personal explanation about why
they had to leave early—highly appropriate in their terms, but inappro-
priate in mine.

Staff form impressions of students partially based on the sorts of consid-

erations and behaviour described above. At all events, the middle class,
white British students whose background style of interaction is congruent
with that of the lecturer, who know the rules of the game, whose idea of
the 'activity type' is concordant with that of the lecturer, and who may
well have mastered what is a definite 'art' in appearing intelligent—these
students are likely to be at an advantage and less likely to create an
unfairly negative impression on the lecturer.
112 Dilys Thorp
 Essays The second activity-type that I should like to consider is that of doing an
essay. This demands knowledge not only of the Academic Task Structure
including knowledge of the discourse conventions (see Kaplan 1966), but
also of the rules and conventions around the doing of it (the Social Parti-
cipation Structure: SPS). For example, a student's idea of the nature of
the essay will influence the questions he or she asks (or omits to ask)
before tackling it. A fellow student on my own MA who felt it inappro-
priate to ask for clarification about an assignment on Halliday's work,
wrote a biography of him and was then most surprised tofindthat this was
unacceptable! In an attempt to counter this problem, at my present
college we hold 'assignment seminars' in which students discuss with
staff their interpretation of an essay title.

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Another SPS problem arises over the amount of help an E AP tutor might
be expected to give in editing/rewriting a student's draft. I found this to be
a particular problem with certain groups of students on an Access course,
who each had an EFL tutor to help with their (assessible) subject course-
work. Clearly, there are cultural differences in the definition of what
constitutes doing one's own work, not only in so far as help from a tutor is
concerned, but also over the. question of whether or not students may
write collaboratively and claim a piece of work as their own. Another
issue is the extent to which a student may 'use' an essay on the same topic
by a former student—this was acceptable practice amongst this group of
students, initially undetected by staff.
There are different expectations too about what happens once the essay
has been written and marked. Is it possible/desirable to discuss it after-
wards with the lecturer and/or the EFL tutor? Is the mark negotiable?
Can one rewrite the piece of work to improve the mark? All these are
questions connected with the Social Participation Structure of doing an
essay.

Other relevant I have looked at the tacit social and cultural rules and routines of lectures
issues and for doing essays. Seminars and tutorials could be discussed in the
same way. It should be remembered too that the problems I have dis-
cussed occur not just with overseas or 'foreign' students, but also—and in
some cases even more so—with bilingual ethnic minority students, for
example, in the UK and the USA. Teachers may not encounter such
students in EAP classes, but they often meet them in language-support or
study-skills classes. Again, such students may often be the subject of a
good deal of negative comment.

A political issue To return for a moment to the work of Erickson and Philips, they have
shown that incongruent participation structures in primary classrooms
led to learning difficulties and feelings of inadequacy on the part of the
pupils, who performed consistently worse than average on national
achievement tests. They therefore argue that teachers need to modify
their approach and, indeed, in some of the schools this has started to hap-
pen. But there is a political issue here: in that case, a political decision has
to be made by the Amer-Indian community as to whether or not they
Confused encounters in the EAP classroom 113
 want to maintain and encourage their own distinctive styles of interac-
tion, which means teacher adaptation in the classroom; or whether they
want a conscious effort made to teach the children the prevailing modes
of participation, so that they are better prepared for secondary and ter-
tiary education where it is felt there can be less accommodation to them.
The situation in schools is rather different from that in higher education,
where the problem does not operate to the same extent. Nevertheless,
there are clearly cultural differences in the interactional contexts in which
people prefer to learn and to demonstrate what they have learnt. This
raises questions for EAP teachers, concerning whether and how the
teachers should adopt their own participation structures in the classroom;
and concerning the extent to which they should teach (one might say

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impose) the interactional patterns pertaining to the British, American, or
whatever, academic context, in so far as these are generalizable.

Example one: I should like now to illustrate some of these problems with three par-
in Japan ticular cases. The first is from my early TEFL experience in Japan. I was
teaching a monolingual class of Japanese students who were on an
advanced-level general English course; many of them were hoping to
undertake further study at American or British universities.
I found that even in small groups—and our classes were deliberately kept
to a maximum of six, later eight—the students were very reluctant to
speak in front of other students unless they were sure that they would not
make any mistakes. Out of interest, I visited some primary and secondary
schools, where I found that across the curriculum there was very little
speaking in class compared to British schools and there was a strong
emphasis on correctness. The current EFL ethos at that time was very
much on speaking and on accuracy through a structural approach. As
language teachers, we frequently put all our efforts into encouraging our
students to speak freely without worrying too much about mistakes, in
the belief that this was the best way to learn. Yet, the emphasis on accu-
racy, which is an essential part of the structural approach, militated
against the students speaking freely in class and led to a good deal of self-
inflicted face-slapping in the class! In retrospect, I consider that we
pushed speaking too hard and did not appreciate the high premium which
Japanese culture puts on not making mistakes in public.

On the other hand, I did adapt to Japanese ideas concerning what was an
acceptable pause length between speaker turns, and between question
and answer. I soon realized that the Japanese have a far greater tolerance
of silence than the British do, and I adapted to this.
Many ELT teachers have commented that in mixed-nationality classes
Japanese students can tend to lose out because they expect turns to be
nominated and are uncomfortable in the 'free for all' situations that occur
in many EFL/EAP classrooms and academic situations. I suggest that this
is an instance where we, the teachers, should be explicit about the interac-
tional 'rules' of our classrooms, and make other students aware of the
Japanese preferred style so that they can be supportive.
114 Dilys Thorp
Example two: My second example is from China, where I was teaching an EAP course
in China for people hoping to go to Britain or America as postgraduates or visiting
scholars. What we found here was that our students were unhappy about
speaking in class 'unprepared'. Initially, they continually asked to be able
to prepare lessons in advance; they also liked to learn by rote. Here again,
as in Japan, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit several schools. I
observed lessons being repeated many times: in one language class, the
chapter was being reworked for the fifth time. Clearly, ideas very differ-
ent from my own prevailed as to how learning occurs. From my obser-
vations of a variety of classes in different subjects, I drew the conclusion
that, in general, greater store was set by copying a model than is the case
in the West.

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There was, then, a conflict here, because we-—the English language
teachers—felt that the best way of learning was through interaction and
spontaneous unplanned talk in the classroom.
We were initially unhappy about the students using these 'traditional'
learning styles in EFL, and so discussed the issue explicitly with them.
What we found was that we were able to work with their styles, by, for
example, providing plenty of homework, and by letting them tape all the
classes including group discussions, so that they could listen again. We
went along with their desire for copying—indeed we harnessed it—by
getting them to produce corrected versions of homework, by editing
drafts of their writing, and so on. In listening, where they needed the skill
of listening for gist and not every word, and where they wanted to listen
time and time again, we gradually weaned them away from this by
initially allowing them to listen as often as they liked; but in return—and
this was their part of the bargain—they were to concentrate on the gist
and answer guided questions. These guided questions moved them away
from a sentence-by-sentence analysis towards inferential interpretation
of the text. Then, we gradually reduced the number of times they were
allowed to listen.3 This seemed to work: it was a system with which they
were happy, and which also enabled them to see real improvements in
their listening skills.

One important feature stands out from both the Chinese and Japanese
experiences: both nationalities initially expected to work in the classroom
on their own as individuals. Indeed, in the schools I visited in both
countries, I saw very little group work; but in both societies, by contrast,
the group ethic is very stong. Consequently, both Chinese and Japanese
students became extremely co-operative and very willing to help one
another once group work had been introduced and explained to them.
Being explicit about a style of interaction and the teacher's and students'
expectations proved to be extremely useful.
In both these instances, then, I adapted my teaching style as a way of pro-
viding a bridge between the students' culturally preferred style of parti-
cipation and what was going to be needed if they went on to higher
education in the UK or USA.
Confused encounters in the EAP classroom 115
 Example three: My third example is taken from a group of students who were on a one-
a UK Access course year Access course leading into a Degree or Diploma course. English
language classes were part of their course, along with subject lectures,
seminars, and tutorials with other students. I should like to start by
describing what not to do—a mistake that was inadvertently made by a
well-meaning subject lecturer in charge of their course, with potentially
serious consequences.
There had been a number of 'confused encounters' or serious interac-
tional problems between the staff (both language and subject specialists)
and students in the first intake, with a negative picture being built up by
either side. So, in an attempt to improve things, shortly before the next

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intake this particular lecturer prepared some draft guide-lines for staff as
to what to expect of this nationality group. The problem was that the
students were described in the very same stereotypical way that the guide-
lines were designed to counter. This goes to show just how difficult it can
be to overcome these ingrained attitudes. Fortunately this was only a
draft and was revised, but not before it had been read by the student
representatives!

In teaching these Access students, I felt that it was my responsibility to

prepare them during the year for the styles of interaction and learning
that would be expected of them as undergraduates. Initially, in the class-
room, however, I adapted to their style: the men were straight out of mili-
tary service and expected learning tasks to be conducted in a very
teacher-centred authoritarian way. I also sensed a certain reluctance on
their part to consider that they could learn from each other: they did not
seem prepared to take group work seriously, or to take responsibility for
their own learning. Initially, then, I was more authoritarian than I would
normally be, but gradually became less so. Through the use of question-
naires and cartoons I discussed these issues with them, their feelings
about group work, and their preferred ways of receiving praise or criti-
cism . I tried to be explicit about expectations of interaction and raise their
awareness. We discussed the norms to which they needed to adhere in lec-
tures and tutorials, and in writing their essays. But there were a number
of other problems, such as behaviour in tests and punctuality, where it
was difficult to have a sensible discussion with them and where as EFL
staff we took more of a sledgehammer approach, partly because we con-
sidered the norms to be non-negotiable and were worried about the nega-
tive impression the students were creating on subject staff.

We also tentatively made suggestions to concerned subject staff about

ways in which they could accommodate to the students: for example, by
explaining what the set-up would be for questions in lectures, or by allow-
ing for private question-time at the end.

'Culture bumps' An approach which would not, I think, have been possible with these
students, but which would be possible with postgraduates, is that advo-
cated by Carol Archer (1986) using what she terms 'culture bumps'. She
has looked at some interactional clashes in higher education and uses the
116 Dilys Thorp
 term 'culture bump' to refer to cases where someone from one culture
finds himself or herself in a strange or uncomfortable situation when
interacting with people of a different culture. The 'bump' occurs when the
individual has expectations of one behaviour, but something completely
different happens.
Archer shows how culture bumps can be used to teach students cultural
awareness and language simultaneously through role play and introspec-
tion. This should, of course, be a two-way process: teachers can be
trained to recognize 'confused encounters' as culture bumps and reflect
on them as such, rather than make value judgements. It is important for
the language teacher to analyse any culture bump in her classroom and
apply it to her own experiences before applying it to those of the students,

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so that the teacher is aware of herself as a cultural being. Archer argues
that language teachers need a rational knowledge of culture bumps in
order to avoid making students give up 'bad behaviour' and be forced to
learn the 'right way'. My Indonesian MA students, who are themselves
EAP teachers, have told me that they like this approach, and have been
reflecting on the culture bumps that they have experienced this year.
Clearly, it would be useful if subject staff were also aware of the value to
themselves of culture bumps, and could recognize the need and pos-
sibilities for two-way accommodation.

Conclusion In conclusion, I would argue that EAP teachers need to be aware of their
own cultural norms of interaction. We should also question the cultural
judgements we are making about the 'right' way to teach and to learn and
to demonstrate that learning. It is far too easy to think that our own ideas
as to what constitutes 'good' learning are universal, and forget their cul-
tural specificity. We need to encourage consideration of both the Social
Participation Structures and the Academic Task Structures of tasks in
higher education. Above all, we need to be careful how we judge our
students and how we judge what is appropriate behaviour.
Our language classes serve as a bridge or safety net between our students
and their academic work. Within the classes there are two options open to
us: we can accommodate to the interactional styles of our learners, or we
can make the interactional demands of our classes more explicit. Firstly, I
believe we should try to increase our own awareness of ourselves as cul-
tural beings, and then that of our students and if possible of other staff.
We should be as explicit as possible in our classrooms. In this way 'con-
fused encounters' may perhaps become enlightening ones.4
Received August 1990

Notes
1 An earlier version of this paper was read at the 2 Staff with students like this could initially structure
Ninth SELMOUS (Special English Language their lectures so that the students have to ask ques-
Materials for Overseas Students) Conference in tions at certain stages; the responsibility for ques-
Leeds, March 1989. SELMOUS has since been tioning the teacher does not then rest solely on the
renamed BALEAP (British Association of Lectur- shoulders of the students.
ers in English for Academic Purposes). 3 This idea was developed by A. i. Waley and is
Confused encounters in the EAP classroom 117
 described in his article 'In the Beginning was the community and classroom', in Cazden, C , John,
Word', Modern English Teacher, September 1984. V., and Hymes, D. (eds.) Functions of Language in
4 This article is perforce written from a teacher's per- the Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.
spective. The author is currently engaged in work Philips, S. 1983. The Invisible Culture: Communica-
in progress ascertaining students' views in greater tion in the Classroom and Community on the Warm
depth and would welcome any comments from Springs Indian Reservation. New York: Longman.
them. Shultz, J., Florio, S., and Erickson, F. 1982. Where's
the floor? Aspects of the cultural organization of
social relationships in communication at home and
References in school', in Gilmore, P. and A. Glatthorn (eds.)
Adelman, C. (ed). 1981. Uttering Muttering. London: Children In and Out of School. Washington DC:
Grant Mclntyre. Centre for Applied Linguistics.
Archer, C. 1986. 'Culture Bump and Beyond', in Val- van Lier, L. 1988. The Classroom and the Language
des, J. (ed.) Culture Bound. Cambridge: Cam- Learner. London: Longman.

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bridge University Press.
Cazden, C. 1985. 'Classroom discourse', in Wittrock,
M. C. (ed.) Handbook of Research on Teaching.
New York: Macmillan.
Erickson, F. 1982. 'Classroom discourse as improvi- The author
sation: relationships between academic task struc- Dilys Thorp is a Senior Lecturer at Ealing College,
ture and social participation structure in lessons', London, currently on a year's leave of absence at
in Wilkinson, L. C. (ed.) Communicating in the Exeter University School of Education where she is
Classroom. New York: Academic Press. teaching Applied Linguistics. Shefirsttaught EFL in
Kaplan, R. 1966. 'Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter- China during the Cultural Revolution, and has sub-
cultural Education'. Language Learning 16. sequently taught in Japan, Hong Kong, and more
Levinson, S. 1979. 'Activity types and language'. recently again in China, as well as the UK. She has an
Linguistics 17. MA in Linguistics for ELT from Lancaster Univer-
Philips, S. 1972. 'Participant structure and commun- sity. Her particular interests are in cross-cultural
icative competence: Warm Springs children in communication and in socio-cultural issues in EAR

118 Dilys Thorp